The terrorists are making life dull for everyone the world around. Security concerns have kicked up over the latest terrorist attacks in Germany and France, prompting the organizers of GamesCom, which takes place between August 17th and August 19th in Cologne, Germany, to ban all imitation guns, fake guns or toy guns used in cosplay costumes.

Sky News is reporting that GamesCom organizers issued the following statement for attendees, where they explained…

“Due to the terrible incidents of the past weeks, the safety and preventions measures at Gamescom 2016 have been adapted,”[…] “The measures apply for all participants of Gamescom.”

[…] “Due to the incidents of the past days, we would kindly ask for your understanding that all imitation weapons or weapon-like items forming part of your costume are not permitted at Gamescom 2016.”

As the headline image shows, pretty much all 1:1 Payday cosplays and cosplays similar games will no longer be possible. Cosplays will now have to feature the characters holding non “weapon-like items” simply because their iconic weapons are no longer allowed on the show floor. Expect to see some rather odd replacements for some characters and their guns.

Exhibitors who plan on having cosplayers walk the show floor as part of their promotional campaign will have to have their imitation weapons pre-registered ahead of time and approved by the organizers. Also, no one is allowed to use imitation weapons, toy guns or fake guns off of the GamesCom premises, as explained in the press notice…

“As well as cosplayers, walking acts of the exhibitors are also still welcome at gamescom. However, these must be registered in advance and possible imitation weapons or weapon-like items will be examined and labelled before gamescom begins. After being examined these parts of the costume will not leave the fair grounds again throughout.”

[Update 8/16/2016: According to the CBC, rubber swords, replica weapons of any sort and crafted melee weapons are also prohibited.]

This event follows recently on the heels of one of Germany’s television networks banning the airing of a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive e-sports tournament due to the Munich shooting.

Terrorists seem to be making gaming worse even when gaming has nothing to do with terrorism.

Even still, these sanctions, restrictions and acts of censorship have been slowly increasing over the past two years in the world of gaming, both in terms of the topic of sexism in gaming and games in relation to real-world violence.

Social activists have been increasingly trying to condemn and conflate gaming and gamers with various forms of gun violence or sexual violence while clearly ignoring some of the religious attachments many of these recent heinous crimes have to Islamic sects, such as the attacks in Brussels that were covered up by the media, or the other multiple attacks that have occurred in Paris and Germany, as reported by New Observer Online.

Unfortunately, the corrupt media have been attempting to put the cause of a lot of societal issues and turmoil on the gaming industry’s plate and they’ve been doing it quite aggressively since 2014, after gamers exposed lots of corruption in the gaming media circuit and documented it on the website Deepfreeze.it along with bringing it to the public’s awareness using #GamerGate.

In the meantime, however, gaming will have to take responsibility for actions no one in the community actually committed and that means no more imitation guns being used in cosplay at events such as GamesCom.

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Billy has been rustling Jimmies for years covering video games, technology and digital trends within the electronics entertainment space. The GJP cried and their tears became his milkshake. Need to get in touch? Try the Contact Page.